


Chloe KNOWS

by matchstick_dolly



Series: Matches After Midnight [13]
Category: Lucifer (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Bi the Way, Bisexuality, Chloe Decker Finds Out, Chloe KNOWS, Chloe goes incognito, Episode Related, F/M, Fluff, Humor, Light Angst, Lucifer has a history, Masturbation, Masturbation Interruptus, Monster sex, Monsterfucker, Multi, POV Chloe, Phone Sex, Porn Watching, Porn With Plot, Post-Episode: s02e11 Stewardess Interruptus, Pre-Canon, Pre-Episode: s02e12 Love Handles, Pre-Season/Series 01, Season/Series 02, Sexual Content, Wet Dream, titles that are meta af
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-21
Updated: 2020-08-02
Packaged: 2021-03-03 20:08:10
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 20,295
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24831367
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/matchstick_dolly/pseuds/matchstick_dolly
Summary: Sexually frustrated after a dinner date gone wrong and a chaste kiss on the beach, Chloe hunts for some much-needed relief. But what she finds in the deep recesses of Pornhub changes life as she knows it.
Relationships: Chloe Decker/Lucifer Morningstar, Lucifer Morningstar/Original Character(s)
Series: Matches After Midnight [13]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1620778
Comments: 250
Kudos: 533
Collections: Filii Hircus: WIP It Good, Lucifer





	1. Shagadelic

**Author's Note:**

  * For [TheWillowBends](https://archiveofourown.org/users/TheWillowBends/gifts).



Chloe's lips tingled as she walked back to her car from the beach. She felt like she was floating, like all it would take to make her drift back to Lucifer would be one little easterly wind. She'd kissed him, even after Jana and interviewing his cavalcade of lovers, and it was still taking everything in her not to grab him by his designer lapels and say to hell with it. 

But she was more responsible than that. She was _determined_ to be. For Trixie's sake. For the sake of not becoming her own damn mother. No more drunkenly climbing into his bed. No more conflating a work relationship with a romantic relationship. Again. 

Wasn't a failed marriage enough for one year?

God, she was out of her fucking mind. A complete and total idiot. She'd _kissed_ him—after Jana, after all those people! Scowling, she shook her head as she climbed back into her practical car and practical life. It was comfortingly familiar, and did nothing to remove the ghost of his mouth on hers.

Lucifer Morningstar was a big enough red flag to rally communists. He was probably involved with the mafia (she'd stopped asking for fear of finding out the truth), he had family issues up to his eyeballs (likely related), he frequently used drugs and drank in the bullpen, he slept with so much of L.A. that there was no chance he didn't _at least_ have herpes. He was rude and selfish and inappropriate, and made her spend hours massaging the truth on paperwork every time he inexplicably Hulked out on a suspect (how did he even _do_ that?). He seemed to legitimately believe he was Satan. 

But he was also clever and sneakily sweet, and she laughed far more since meeting him. Work had gone from being a duty—one she was proud of, but a duty nonetheless—to being a little bit of a thrill. 

And she was not blind, nor was she repulsed, at a chemical level or otherwise. Everything would be a lot easier if she were.

* * *

The lights were off in her apartment. Maze was gone, doing God only knows what, and Trixie was with Dan. Chloe still wasn't used to that aspect of their divorce. During the separation, Trixie had lived with her full-time. Now, Chloe had nights alone. Nights where she thought too much about her age and relationship status, which somehow always got her thinking about Lucifer. Because she was an idiot who would not let this stupid crush go, no matter how many warning signs flashed TURN BACK, DEAD END.

She poured a glass of wine and leaned against the kitchen counter, her insides aflutter. She should not have kissed him. But he had managed to say all the right things in the process of telling her all the reasons he was wrong for her. 

And she was not blind.

Closing her eyes, she let herself replay the kiss. It was gentle and closed mouth, a real nothing of a kiss, if she was honest with herself, but it sent her flying, anyway. His lips were soft, a soothing contrast to the subtle scratch of stubble at her face and beneath her fingertips. Her heart pounded with the memory of whiskey, tobacco, and a heavy, vanilla-scented beard oil filling her nose.

She hadn't planned to kiss him—these days, it felt like she was bad at planning everything—but even as she'd done it, she'd thought it would go differently. That he would eagerly respond, deepening the kiss like only L.A.'s most ridiculous playboy could. That she would— Her eyes snapped open. That she would _what_? Let him have his way with her in the sand? Go back to his penthouse like all those other women and men?

"This is stupid," Chloe said to her empty kitchen. 

Glass in one hand and wine bottle in the other, she turned toward her stairwell on a mission. Clearly she needed to get off. That's all this was. Hormones. She was probably ovulating and working against millions of years of evolution that favored tall, dark, and handsome men. This wasn't her fault. 

In her bedroom, she kicked the door shut and locked it in the off chance Maze came home early. She did _not_ want a repeat of last time.

After setting aside her glass and the wine bottle, she tugged off her jeans and fell back on her bed. Sighing like a lovesick teenager, she stared at the smooth, white ceiling, feeling a steady thrum of yearning ripple through her body. Had she felt that _before_ she kissed him or _after_? Did it matter?

No, she decided, because the kiss was a temporary lapse in judgment. That. Was. All. 

Drawing her feet up, she planted her heels on the mattress and slid a hand between her legs. She ran her fingers along the outside of her panties, where she cupped her flesh and massaged. An unsteady breath spilled from her mouth as she rubbed circles into the thin cotton. This was all she needed, she thought, mind drifting lazily between old experiences and fantasies. She was just a little on edge. Between work and Trixie and Maze and Lucifer, she didn't get much time to herself.

She dipped her fingers beneath the waist of her panties, her toes curling gently. Memories of yesterday's interviews hit her, unbidden. All the many, many faces of women and a few men, some beautiful, some strange, all more varied than she'd expected, and all singing Lucifer's praises. She slid her fingers through slick folds as she considered the phrase that kept popping up, again and again and again.

"It was the _best_ night of my life," they said, with the conviction of true believers.

Could he really be _that_ good? She circled her clit and wondered. What would a best night for _her_ look like?

Chloe imagined Lucifer stretched out beside her, naked in all his glory, the V of his hips, the long heaviness of his cock, which she remembered in more detail than she preferred to analyze. She could almost feel how he'd lean in, kiss along her jaw, and whisper into her ear, "What is it you desire, Detective?"

"Shit," Chloe muttered into the silence of her bedroom, hand stilling in her underwear. 

If her goal was to get _over_ the kiss and his face, this was not the way to do it. Fine. Time to be practical, get off quickly, and be done with it once and for all. There was no reason why she couldn't, what with the apartment to herself.

Rolling over, she reached into the drawer of her nightstand and pulled out her lone vibrator. The blue bullet vibe didn't look like anything special, but it actually packed a punch and was the most expensive sex toy she'd ever bought. It had been a small gift to herself during the trial separation from Dan, when she'd thrown away the few toys they'd ever used together in a fit of Palmetto-related anger. The bullet vibe was powerful and "discreet," as the description for it had promised, perfect for someone who tended to have other people in the home, but she'd discovered not long ago that somehow _nothing_ was discreet enough when Maze was in the house. The last time she'd dared to try to use it, a knock had sounded on their shared wall, followed by suggestive moaning.

She thumbed the vibrator on while squirming to kick her panties off. It rumbled in her hand, lightly numbing her fingers. She wasted no time with further prepping and smashed it directly to her clit. She jerked a little, unprepared for the sensation, but then settled and closed her eyes.

Lucifer was there immediately. She forgave herself and went with it. This wouldn't take long.

"What is it you desire, Detective?"

The fantasy cut between scenes as the vibrator whirred. His hand between her legs, large and warm, two fingers buried deep inside her. His mouth on her breasts, a nipple pinched between thumb and forefinger. Her on all fours, her front falling to the bed as he jerked his hips forward. She let out a small moan, her brow furrowing with concentration.

Silence hit the room hard as the vibrator died.

Chloe sat up in disbelief, her mouth hanging open as she boggled at the toy and jammed her thumb against the on button several times. " _Really_?" she spat at the worthless device.

And it wasn't battery-powered. Of course not. It was charged via USB and took at least an hour to suck up enough energy to do the job. 

Glowering, she stood up, tore off her shirt and bra in exasperation, and grabbed her laptop from where it sat charging atop her chest of drawers. Climbing into bed with it after plugging the vibrator up to a nearby outlet, she stuffed earbuds into her ears, opened an incognito window in her browser, and visited Pornhub. Porn was a last resort, but also another way to come and stop. thinking. about. Lucifer.

She wasn't a huge fan of porn, to be honest, but maybe she'd find something tonight. At the best of times, it took too long to find the right content, which meant she could lose interest along the way, and at at the worst of times, porn could remind her of the weirdness of baring her breasts for _Hot Tub High School_. All the makeup and lighting and pretending to be more confident and turned on than she felt while a room full of people—disproportionately male—evaluated her performance.

The front page of the website was a cornucopia of pornographic material that did not entice her. There were off-putting video titles, women obviously faking it, men hung like horses who were far less attractive than their partners, closeups that were grossly clinical. And why did everyone want to sleep with their step-siblings and step-parents now? What the hell?

Casting one final perturbed glare at her vibrator, she lounged against pillows and sank one hand beneath the sheets while she used the other to browse. She always ended up in weird places on porn sites. It was like visiting Wikipedia. You might start reading about Twinkies, but you could end up on Broadway musicals, and somehow all roads eventually led to Hitler. If she was lucky, she orgasmed somewhere in the middle of all that and didn't feel weird and guilty afterward.

She browsed aimlessly, one finger circling her clit. Most videos were easy to disregard. Others she clicked on intrigued her, but fell short of the mark for one reason or another. Twenty minutes in, her libido had all but crashed, but at least her mind was also no longer on Lucifer. She instead found herself in an animated porn category, where she marveled at censored cartoon vaginas, the uncanny valley of 3D faces, and tentacles. Some of the monsters intrigued her more than she thought they should.

On a whim, she searched for "devil," a character and term that had never crossed her mind much until she partnered up with someone who wouldn't shut up about it. There were more than three thousand results on Pornhub, and if the first page was anything to go by, few of the videos took the word as literally as she technically meant it. God, what was wrong with her? Still, she didn't exit the site.

_Big Cock Devil Pumps MILF Angel Ass_

_Candace Rivers Takes Devils Load_

_The Devil Went Down On Giorgio_

Snorting, Chloe clicked on the last link with its female star and her red devil horns. The video opened on a provocative moan as the woman swirled her tongue around the head of Giorgio's thick cock before sinking forward. She had beautiful blue eyes that looked up at her partner as she sucked and licked. 

It wasn't the best porn Chloe had ever watched, but it didn't gross her out. It was cute and realistic, and comforting for it, and soon her interest came roaring back. She slid her hand deeper between her thighs and pressed a finger inside herself before returning to her clit.

What did Lucifer look like when he sank to his knees before the men she'd interviewed? What did he look like when men sank before him? How _did_ he use Vaseline and a car battery in sex? 

She sighed and focused harder on the couple on her screen, feeling incredibly single and thankfully close as she rubbed her clit harder and arched her hips enough to tilt the laptop sideways. Her head tilted with it. 

The man on the screen groaned, the devil-horned woman's eyes crinkled at their corners in pleased anticipation, and Chloe was close, so close. But at the last minute, the woman backed away, Giorgio took his cock in hand, jerked three times, and came right over the woman's nose and closed eyes.

Chloe's hand stilled between her legs as she stared blankly at the screen and the woman's quiet laughter beneath her messy face. It _was_ funny, but it was not what would get Chloe off. The video ended as Giorgio gently tugged the devil horns from the woman's head.

Squeezing her thighs together, Chloe wrestled with her own sexual frustration. Another porn site? Give in and let her fantasies go in the direction they clearly wanted to? Call Lucifer and let herself go in the direction she clearly wanted to?

Definitely not that.

Her eyes flicked between related video links for blowjobs that didn't look nearly so intimate as the one she'd just watched. She was about to close her browser and resort to drinking her horniness away when she saw a golden-tinged, slightly blurry thumbnail for vintage porn the website had somehow deemed related.

_Cowboys in Paris Vintage 1970s [FULL VIDEO]_

Chloe arched an eyebrow as she poured more wine into her glass. If anything could douse the fire in her veins it'd be forty-five minutes of sex from the disco era. She clicked on it and snuggled her comforter over her breasts, wine glass in hand. She wriggled her hips, grimacing at the discomfort of unrealized release, and clicked play, preparing to laugh.

Seventies music blared through her earbuds. It was upbeat, folksy, and psychedelic, and made her think of bell bottoms, lava lamps, and the Marlboro Man. She knew very little about the seventies outside of those things and disco.

A black title screen zoomed into place and then zoomed out on a cold open. Filmed from the side, two men were having sex with a blond, curly-haired woman who was on all fours atop a pale blue, padded bench in what was definitely just someone's home. Between the music and the softer edges of the old, discolored film, everything had a dreamlike quality.

Before the woman, a thick-muscled man beneath a large, brown cowboy hat gently worked his hips in tandem with her mouth. Behind her, a second man, svelte, long-legged, and dark-haired, thrust inside her, his head cast downward to watch their connection. His legs were spread far apart to get the right angle. His muscled thighs tensed with each rhythmic snap of his hips, which made the woman's curls bounce and her pendulous breasts swing. The strokes were skillful enough that Chloe set her wine glass aside and watched more closely. 

Leaning over the woman's back, the lithe man used one hand to steady her hips and the other to reach for the second man. The two met above the woman in a deep kiss, the dark-haired man's head tilting away from the camera while he rolled his hips against the woman's ass.

Chloe's mouth fell open as she looked at the very connected trio. "Oh my God," she muttered.

This was an Eiffel Tower. It looked just like it. Cowboys in Paris. Holy shit.

Her eyebrows shot up as the woman, presumably Paris herself, cried out. Chloe snaked a hand beneath the sheets as the music track changed to something almost beachy. A tambourine rattled with the guitar riffs.

As the men parted from their kiss, the dark-haired man took hold of the cowboy hat's brim and lifted it from the other man's head, revealing shaggy, brown hair and a bushy, brown mustache that the hat and poor film quality had obscured. Placing the hat on his own head, the dark-haired man tilted it downward and a little to one side, his soft-edged profile falling into shadow. It was a cute, masterful move that made both Pornstache and Chloe chuckle.

They continued fucking Paris, who became increasingly incoherent, especially once the newly-crowned cowboy bent and snuck a hand between her legs. Maybe it was a weird thing to wish for in porn—especially in porn that was created long before she was even conceived—but Chloe wished she could see more of Cowboy's face. What little she could see of his grin, the way it canted with joy, made her yearn for someone to smile like that about her and made it easy to imagine herself between these two men.

Of course, someone _did_ smile like that around her, but she was not going there. This was a good distraction.

The track changed again, sounding more western with its steel guitar, and the scene cut to a new angle. Paris now sat in a yellow paisley chair, her legs hooked on the arms of the furniture to spread herself wide open, revealing...not much at all, just a thin line of pink amid a thick, black bush that looked like it had never been in the same room as a pair of scissors, much less actually trimmed. 

Paris slid her hands over her breasts, tweaking her nipples, and then down between her legs, where she parted her labia wide to reveal more pink. The camera edged closer, wobbling with low-budget unprofessionalism. Pornstache reappeared beside the chair, and Paris licked a stripe up his erection while playing with her clit.

Okay, but where was Cowboy?

Chloe watched several seconds longer, then, rolling her eyes at herself and her own arousal, skimmed the video ahead by a few minutes. The angle changed abruptly, as did the music, but Cowboy had returned. The camera hovered above Paris' left shoulder, looking down her curvy body. On her right, Pornstache lapped at her nipple, while Cowboy gazed up at her as his mouth worked between her thighs. Only his eyes, dark and slow to blink, were visible between his hat and Paris' thick hinterland. Chloe frowned and squinted a little as she looked into his eyes, her fingers wet as they moved between her legs.

Paris writhed, her moans eclipsing the cheesy music. Cowboy's forearms wrapped around her thighs and drew her closer, and then Chloe could hear _him_. The way he moaned against her flesh and huffed into her hair with hunger, the way he never let up. One of his hands snaked away from Paris' thighs and disappeared out of sight. Paris gasped, Cowboy chuckled, and Chloe arched, her muscles fluttering.

" _Oh my God_!" Paris squealed, hips jutting upward.

Cowboy popped up at once, his face horrifyingly familiar beneath the wide-brimmed hat. "Could you _not_?" he snapped in a British accent, his stubbled chin ridiculously wet.

Shouting nonsensically, Chloe threw the laptop away from herself and straight off the bed, painfully ripping the earbuds from her ears. The laptop crashed to the floor, but still she heard the psychedelic beats softly cheering through the earbuds. Chloe sat naked on her bed, eyes wide as she breathed like a wild animal. She looked around her bedroom, half-expecting to see Lucifer or Maze or some hidden camera.

"What the fuck?" she whispered. Then, more loudly, "What the fuck?"

How could he... Was he _spying_ on her browser? When did he even _make_ that? Who made fake seventies porn? What kind of prank _was_ this? 

Peeking over the edge of her bed and the laptop, she narrowed her eyes at Lucifer nailing Paris—and Pornstache nailing Lucifer—and got a little distracted in the process. Blinking and shaking her head, she looked at the date the video was uploaded. More than a year ago. Before she even met Lucifer, actually.

 _How_? "What the fuck!" she yelled.

Launching herself off the bed, she dug into her jeans for her cell phone and smashed her thumb on Lucifer's face before she had too much time to look at it. She pinned the phone between her ear and shoulder as she marched into her bathroom and cleaned up so she could get dressed. He answered on the third ring, while she was staring blankly at herself in the mirror, one hand between her legs.

"Detective?"

Jesus Christ, hearing his voice right now was a trip. She threw the washcloth in the sink, her head filled with the image of him in a cowboy hat.

"Are you spying on me?"

"I...beg your pardon?"

"Are you, like, _watching_ me?" she asked, stepping into underwear, her eyes roving her bedroom nervously. "Like, right now?"

"Detective, I would _never_ —not unless you wanted, of course, in which case..." He cleared his throat. "Is this somehow... Is this about our moment on the beach earlier?" Holy shit, she'd kissed him. What the fuck. "Because if it—"

"Hold on," she said, tossing the phone to her bed so she could drag on a bra and t-shirt. She snatched up the phone again and hopped on one leg as she stuffed herself back into her skinny jeans. Fully dressed, she felt a little less horrified, though she still used her bare foot to close her laptop on the floor. "Okay, back," she said quietly.

"Is everything all right, Detective?" Lucifer asked.

She wasn't sure. "I... Are you, like, a fan of the seventies or something?"

"I did rather like what I saw of that decade," he replied, after an initial pause. "Mostly remember it in funny colors, to be honest. LSD was bloody everywhere I went."

Chloe stilled, a sock in one hand. The room lurched before righting itself. She breathed very quietly as a tiny, tiny part of herself dared to ask, What if that porn video really _was_ filmed in the 1970s? What if that really _was_ Lucifer, looking no different, if far less clothed, than the man she'd left on the beach?

What if Lucifer wasn't a man at all? And if he wasn't, what was he?

"Detective? Do you need me to come over?"

"What!" she shouted. "No!"

"All right," he said quietly. 

Her heart pounded. "Have you ever lied to me?"

"No," he said, without hesitation. "Nor will I."

But he played with the truth, she knew that. He liked loopholes. But she also thought he _did_ tell the truth, far more than anyone else she'd ever met in her life. Which meant... Well, it _could_ mean... It could mean a whole fucking lot, couldn't it?

"I'm coming over," Chloe said in a rush, even as she wondered what the hell she was doing.

 _Hell_. Oh my God, she thought.

 _God_. What the fuck. No. No, there was no way.

"Of course," Lucifer said. "You're always welcome here."

"No one's...there...right?" No one like Paris or Pornstache or God. Just the Devil. Maybe. A hysterical laugh slipped past her lips before she clamped her mouth shut.

"If you're asking if I'm entertaining others with myself, the answer is no." She heard him swallow. "In all honesty, I had quite a lot to think about after you... Well, you kissed me, didn't you?"

Chloe nodded, though he couldn't see her. "Okay... Just stay there, and-and you should know I'm bringing my gun." Both of them.

Lucifer laughed loudly, sounding more delighted than concerned. "Planning on shooting me again, Detective?"

She scowled as she stuffed her feet into her boots. "Not if you don't make me," she snapped, and ended the call.

Grabbing her keys from the kitchen counter, she went out into the world to reacquaint herself with Lucifer Morningstar, part-time consultant to the LAPD, occasional porn star, and maybe full-time Devil.


	2. What, the Devil?

Chloe stared out her windshield at the concrete wall, trying and failing to keep her shock in check. These were the facts: Against her better judgment, she had kissed Lucifer Morningstar. She was probably in love with him. And she had seen him in porn from the 1970s. Ergo, there was a non-zero chance she was parked in Satan's garage. She hardly remembered the drive over.

Her heart beat like a hummingbird's wing as she thought back on some of the stranger things she'd seen since she'd met Lucifer. A man gone insane, convinced he had seen the actual Devil. Another thrown out a glass window as if he were a paper football flicked across a table. Most terrifying of all, a flashed reflection of a crimson face in a scuffed steel panel.

"Oh my God, I can't do this," she muttered, wincing at the G-word and fumbling to jam her key back in the ignition. 

She was going to get Trixie from Dan's and-and then what? What was the protocol for realizing your best friend, the man haunting your wet dreams, was the Devil himself? Was she _possessed_? What did you do for _that_? Go to church? What denomination? Catholicism was really old and big on exorcism, wasn't it? Judaism was older, though... Whatever. She needed all the help she could get—a priest, a rabbi, and/or maybe the Pope himself. The Pope had a direct line to God, right? She could go to Italy on her credit card or, _ugh_ , ask her mom for money. 

Knuckles rapped against the passenger window. Chloe startled, gasping and dropping her keys to the floorboard. Her head jerked to the right—and there was Charlotte Richards, of all people, beaming her predatory lawyer's smile and curling her fingers in a wave. What was _with_ this woman? Why was she always popping up now?

Still, Chloe was almost grateful to see a familiar face, even if it was a punchable one. Calming her breathing, she held up a finger for the other woman to wait as she bent to retrieve her keys.

Maybe she could do this, she thought, fingers closing round the keychain Trixie had made for her. Italy was a crazy idea. Lucifer would never hurt her. He wasn't in the business of hurting people—well, okay, he didn't seem to be in the business of hurting _innocent_ people. If nothing else, Paris and the ninety-two glowing reviews were proof of that, right? She blinked and shook her head. 

This would be fine. Everything would be fine. In all likelihood, there was just some big misunderstanding, right? Maybe he had a relative who...used to be in porn and look and sound just like him. 

Or Lucifer was the Devil.

Climbing from the car, she locked the door and then leaned her arms against the roof of the vehicle. Charlotte was dressed to the nines, as usual, and studying Chloe with that intense stare of hers. After Smith's trial and the weird little stunt in the precinct yesterday, Chloe wasn't sure what to make of Charlotte, but there were bad vibes, to say the least. 

"Are you, like, stalking Lucifer or something?" 

She certainly wasn't the only one. Not that anyone could stalk Lucifer like Suki Price was stalking him.

"Only when I need to," Charlotte replied, without a hint of irony. She wagged a finger playfully. "So, have you come to have sex with him after all your little chats with his lovers?" 

Chloe boggled at Charlotte's gleeful tone while images of Cowboy grinding into Paris flitted through her head. "I don't know who you think you are, asking that question, but, _no_ , actually. I'm _not_ here to be another notch in Lucifer's bedpost."

"Pity." Charlotte pouted. "I think he takes after me, and _I'm_ great in bed. And you certainly look like you need to unwind."

"Oookay." Chloe laughed uncomfortably. "This conversation's over. Good night, Charlotte."

Charlotte smiled. "Good luck, detective. Just be yourself! He seems to like that for some reason."

Face scrunched in confusion, Chloe turned away. As she walked to the elevator, she cast furtive glances over her shoulder, watching as Charlotte got into a blue sports car, revved the engine, and reversed so hard that the tires squealed on the garage's concrete. She peeled out of the lot like a bat out of—okay, like a crazy woman, her fender scraping another car's bumper as she made an unnecessarily sharp turn.

How was this day getting _weirder_?

In the elevator, Chloe pushed the button for the penthouse and, for a moment, forgot why she was visiting. After all, she and Lucifer were always barging in on each other's lives. But reality sideswiped her as the button for the tenth floor lit golden during the ascent. 

"Shit," she muttered, panicking and jabbing the button for the ground level.

She was wrong. She could _not_ do this.

The elevator continued to rise, and Chloe hopped on her toes, chanting curse words while slapping the buttons for every other floor. The other floors weren't accessible. She pressed their call buttons and watched in misery as they lit up and then immediately dimmed, as if never selected at all. _Of course_ the _other_ floors were locked.

When the car shook to a gentle stop and the door slid open, Chloe stood as still as a statue and as saucer-eyed as a tarsier. 

Lucifer was sitting before his piano, his navy-vested back to the penthouse entrance. Twisting round on the bench, he looked right at her, his eyes squinting in pleasure as his mouth kicked up on one side in a grin. 

Chloe blinked. It was Cowboy's smile. And for just a second, she imagined Lucifer naked with a wide-brimmed hat on his head. 

His smile faltered. "Detective?"

The door started to close over her face, and she threw out a hand, catching it. With a shaky breath, she crossed into the penthouse and stood in place, folding her hands in front of herself. 

"Hi," she said.

 _Howdy_ , she thought, and nearly laughed.

"Hello?" Lucifer returned. 

They regarded each other curiously, though Chloe imagined for very different reasons. 

Finally, she came out and said it: "You're the _actual_ Devil."

"I—" He tilted his head like a bird. "Yes?"

Putting it into words, she knew it was true in the same way gravity was true. It really was him, beautiful and ageless, in that old porn. It really was him, scarlet and terrifying, in that warehouse where she shot him. Oh, _God_ , she'd shot the Devil. And kissed him. And now she was in his luxury apartment with its dumb, fancy walls.

"Detective, are you certain you're well?" He slid from the bench and turned toward her, frowning when she stumbled back into the closed elevator door. "You were rather odd on the phone, and now, well, you're looking a bit peaked."

"I just..." She raised her hands, only to drop them, confounded as she was by the situation. "How was I supposed to know you were telling the truth the whole time!"

"I always tell the truth?" he sang with a bewildered shrug. Then his brow furrowed. "Wait. This really isn't about our moment on the beach?" She shook her head. "You're saying that you... _believe_ me now? _Truly_?"

She nodded, mute.

" _Why_?" He held up a hand. "Actually, hold that thought. This calls for celebration!" He strode to his bar. She didn't miss how his hands shook as he selected a bottle and two glasses. It was oddly comforting, that tremor. "So, what made you see the light, as it were?" 

Oh. 

Oh, no, no, no.

They stared at one another as he poured liquor. Chloe broke into a nervous sweat that had nothing to do with this existential nightmare and everything to do with pure, unadulterated embarassment. Lucifer's brows knit closer and closer together the longer she was silent, and then his head began to tilt again. Oh, no. A small, curious smirk pulled at his mouth.

"You're the color of a tomato, Detective." 

"Am I?" Her voice lilted higher than it should have. She fanned herself. "It's kind of hot, don't you think? It's hot in here."

"Is it?" the Devil purred as he slid a tumbler of amber liquid to the end of the counter. He leaned against the bar, a look of familiar mischief sparking in his eyes as he lifted his drink. "Pray tell, what exactly helped you solve the case of my person?"

"I, uh..." Chloe dared to take a step closer, just so she could snatch up the drink he had poured. 

She stared into the glass. Was it smart to drink what the Devil gave you? Was this like one of those fairy tale things? But then she'd had dozens of drinks he had poured, and it wasn't as if she cared about the implications right now. She tipped back the glass and drank. His top shelf scotch was as smooth as it got, but it nonetheless burned on the way down. She coughed slightly and held the crystal close to her chest. 

Lucifer's amusement was palpable. "That juicy of a story, is it?"

"Not really. I just, um, was on my laptop and came across— " Her eyes widened. "Stumbled across! I _stumbled_ across something old. That you were in." 

"Ooh," he cooed, " _Googling_ me, were you?" 

"Sort of." Chloe licked her lips. "Just...you looked the same in the seventies. As now. And I guess, I...put two-and-two together, you know?" She laughed uneasily. "Finally."

All the nights she'd spent doing just that— _googling_ him—rewatching that old surveillance video, replaying every strange thing he'd said and done, and still she'd denied what was right in front of her. Because it was too absurd. Even now, everything in her wanted to reject what she had seen, even as another part of her was just as certain she had always known the truth. 

Lucifer drank the rest of his scotch and set his tumbler aside. He tapped a finger against the glass counter. She followed the motion, remembering the clever ways he'd applied his fingers to Paris. He had a _lot_ of experience, she realized, and felt her face grow hot again.

"I did quite a bit in the seventies," Lucifer said thoughtfully. "It was a wild weekend. Tell me, did you find the erotic art with the anaconda? Last I checked, that was floating about."

"Is that...a euphemism?"

" _Detective_ ," Lucifer crowed, delighted, "that's rather ribald humor for you. But, no, not a euphemism. Just a bit of irony." Sniffing, he subsided, and his finger resumed its tapping. "Well, if it wasn't the anaconda..."

"Look, maybe we should just talk about why you're here and why—"

Chloe trailed off as Lucifer had what could only be described as a _eureka!_ moment. His face, his entire body, lit with realization. 

"Please no," she said. She didn't mean to speak the thought, but it came out of its own accord. 

"You little pervert," Lucifer breathed in wonder, "you saw the Eiffel Tower, didn't you?"

She tried to school her face. "What Eiffel Tower?" 

"Certainly not the one in France." As an afterthought, he added, "Well. I've done it in France, too. At the top of the Eiffel Tower, actually. With a beret on. But not in the seventies."

"I-I don't know what you're talking about." 

She had never sounded so guilty in her life. It wasn't even her voice coming out of her mouth.

Lucifer gave her a wry, disbelieving look before his mouth fell open, and again Chloe felt dread. He let out a small gasp as he shook a pointer finger. "You snogged me on that beach and went straight home and had a diddle, didn't you?"

Chloe huffed indignantly. "Not that it's _any_ of your business—"

"Seems it was all _about_ my business." His eyebrows jumped suggestively. "Oh, but it's awful you used such dated material! I post high quality content under BigRooster666."

Of course he did.

"You— _You_ —" She pursed her lips, disbelief, humiliation, and fear hitting her squarely in her gut.

He grinned. "Yes?"

"I just... What is the Devil even _doing_ in L.A.!" 

Her shout all but echoed through the apartment. The mood changed at once, making her almost regret the outburst. Lucifer's face fell, and her heart gave a lurching thud. For a moment there, it had been a little fun being teased, even if it was embarrassing.

"I'm retired, Detective."

"Retired," she echoed. "From..."

"The Inferno, Hell, perdition, _The Bad Place_." At the blunt confirmation, he looked away from her and refilled his glass. His hands were shaking again.

"So Hell's real." 

How could it _possibly_ be a real place?

"Oh, yes, very real." Sighing, he took his glass and walked away from the bar, only to turn back and grab the bottle, as well. "I suppose you'll have questions." 

Chloe watched as he collapsed into one of his honey-colored armchairs. She _did_ have questions. Lots of them. 

Taking up her glass again, she went and sat across from him. The penthouse was cozy, the only sounds the crackling of a fire in his fireplace and the soft hum of L.A.'s night traffic beyond the balcony. 

She sipped her scotch and studied her enigmatic partner. Doubt crept in again. How could she be so certain he was who— _what_ —he said he was, based on one grainy video, a thing she _might_ have seen in a warehouse, once? There were other things, too, of course, but maybe there was still some logical explanation for it. Maybe immortals _were_ real, but did that make Lucifer the Devil? How was she supposed to know?

"I need more evidence," she decided.

His frown was wary. "What kind of evidence, Detective?"

"I don't know? Magic?"

Lucifer scoffed, "Well, I'm not a bloody magician."

She narrowed her eyes. "I've seen you do things I can't explain."

"That doesn't make me David Blaine, does it? Gosh, you should have just tested my blood when you had the chance."

But she hadn't wanted to know the truth, then, had she?

"Don't you have a—" A what, exactly? She circled a finger in front of her face. "A mask or whatever?"

"How do you know about that?" he asked sharply. 

"I...may have caught a glimpse of it, of you. Once."

"What?" He sat up, alarmed. "When?"

"Uh...right before I shot you?" She winced. "I'm still really sorry about that."

Lucifer sat back again and laughed tiredly. "So, let me get this straight. You want to see my devil face, and you might shoot me dead in reply?" He shook his head. "Can't you simply trust me when I say you don't want to see it?" He grimaced. "Or deserve to, for that matter."

"Why?"

"Because it's a tool for exacting punishment, Detective, not some _cool_ party trick."

Chloe ran a thumb back and forth over the lip of her glass, thinking, debating. "I think I need to see it."

Lucifer glared. "No."

"If you want me to really believe you and understand, I have to know what I'm getting into." If there was anything here to get into at all.

"Isn't it enough to know I give great head?" he joked half-heartedly. "I can provide a demonstration, if you like."

She hated how she thought about it. "Lucifer."

His shoulders slumped as he sighed and rolled his eyes. "You do realize this is what did Jimmy Barnes in, right?"

So he knew then, and she did, too, didn't she? But she had to _see_.

"I know you won't hurt me," she whispered, and believed it.

Pain blossomed across his face. "I certainly won't _intend_ to, Detective, but I'm—" He looked away, his focus going to a leafy potted plant. The soft light of the penthouse caught the glassiness of his eyes. "You have to understand there is a part of me that is _monstrous_. Whatever you saw of me will pale in comparison to seeing—"

"Are you gonna trust me or not?" Chloe interrupted, feeling brave.

He looked back at her. "Detective, I trust _you_ …"

"Then trust I can handle the truth. Once and for all."

Faith was not something Chloe had, especially not after her father was murdered and her husband betrayed her, but she believed in this uncanny partnership more than most things in life. No matter how weird it got, and even if he did show up in _very_ unlikely places, giving her the shock of her life. 

Trembling, she set aside her glass, unholstered her pistols, and went about unloading them. She set the weapons and ammo on different tables, on opposite ends of the sitting area. Then she returned to her spot across from him and white-knuckled her knees. " _Show me_."

He stared at her for a long moment, but then nodded. "Very well." 

Letting out a ragged breath, he set aside his drink, straightened, and tugged on his vest. They looked at one another for another long, tense moment, and then, without any further warning, he transformed into a twisted, raw-fleshed _being_. His dark brown eyes, so full of warmth and his own fear, became an unreadable deep, blood red. The change was so sudden, so intense, that it stole Chloe's breath. She felt her face go slack with shock as all the incongruous pieces she'd held so close to her heart clicked into place. 

Lucifer Morningstar was _exactly_ who he had always said he was. 

* * *

Chloe left in a hurry. Now she sat hunched over a questionably clean outdoor table at the nearest Five Guys, a bag of fries bleeding grease onto her skinny jeans as she inhaled a burger that would no doubt put her that much closer to the grave. Not that life ended in the coffin, apparently. 

That was the real sticking point. Lucifer's face was... _interesting_ , to put it mildly. She wasn't sure she found him all that scary—honestly, he didn't even have horns. It was, in an odd sort of way, comforting that he had never lied to her. But proof of the afterlife? That was a bit much after this day of highs and lows. Knowing said proof was probably in love with _her_ , mortal detective / single mom Choe Decker, and definitely wanted to get into her pants was...

It was a lot.

Her cell phone rumbled against the table again. She glanced at the device as its face lit up. Another apology text she didn't know what to do with. She wasn't even sure why he was sorry. _She_ was the one being evasive this time. 

It would be a lot easier if she didn't care and if he would behave anything like the Devil she'd grown up seeing in movies. But he was still Lucifer. 

She chewed mechanically, tasting nothing.

* * *

At home, Chloe left the lights off downstairs and felt her way up to the second story, where she drifted to her room in a daze. Her laptop was still on the floor, where she'd unceremoniously thrown it what felt like years ago. She picked it up as if it were radioactive and gently dropped it to the bed. Sitting beside it, she focused on the purple line etched on the side of her chest of drawers, a small reminder from a time when her marriage wasn't a disaster and Trixie thought crayon art belonged everywhere.

What did it mean to be in love with the Devil? 

She should shower and brush her teeth and moisturize, but instead she stripped down to her underwear and slid between the sheets. Sleep was all she wanted. You didn't have to think if you were asleep. 

Lights off and covers drawn up to her chin, she looked up at the grey ceiling and wondered if God was watching, and then cringed at the thought, choosing to believe He couldn't be that much of a creep. But no wonder Lucifer was paranoid. The world felt much bigger, and far less private, than it had before. 

Should she say a prayer? What did you say in prayers when you knew it was all real? When, just hours before, you were thinking about sleeping with the so-called enemy? 

Round and round, her mind went, picking apart the past, imagining what the future might bring. Was she bound for Hell now? What did _that_ mean?

Round and round and round.

* * *

Bubbles gathered and popped against Chloe's breasts as she leaned on the tiled edge of the hot tub, her chin perched on her folded arms. The water had turned her soft pink and blissfully boneless some time ago, and she gazed serenely at the apricot-colored sky hovering above L.A's gleaming glass and steel.

Water splashed quietly at her back and swept low, swirling and churning against her bare flesh as Lucifer joined her in the hot tub. She smiled when his hands landed, warm and heavy and familiar, upon her shoulders. Fingers stretched inward, engulfing her collarbones and caressing her throat. His presence, the velvet of his skin against hers, consumed her as he worked knots from the column of her neck. When he was finished there, he dragged his thumbs down into the wings of her shoulder blades and along the hills of her spine. 

Closing her eyes, Chloe rested her forehead against her arms and sighed. His erection lay as heavy as a promise at her back, and she arched into him and rolled her hips, making promises of her own.

"Do you desire me?" Lucifer asked, leaning over her, his breath hot against the curve of her ear.

Chloe's mouth twitched. "No."

"No?" he snickered. "Not one bit?"

"You're repulsive," she said.

He hummed his doubt, his left hand continuing to knead her shoulder, while his right slipped to her side, beneath her arm. Fingers skated along the soft swell of her breast and lower, sinking into the water to slide across the dip of her waist and the jut of her hip. He came to a stop low on her stomach, his fingers settled amid the trimmed hair between her legs. He held still for a small eternity, and they breathed in tandem, the water roiling around them.

It was torture, waiting, and eventually Chloe arched her back again, pressing against him. A ragged breath shook free from her lungs, and a chuckle graced her ear. His hand slid down, cupping her sex, his fingers gliding. She whimpered softly, and he ground his hips toward her body.

" _Detective_ ," he tsked, finger circling her opening. "Is this how you feel about people who repulse you?"

Her biting reply was cut short by a gasp as he slid his finger inside her, while his other hand clutched her breast and squeezed.

Pleasure did strange things to time. He seemed everywhere at once. At her back, between her legs, and buried somewhere deep in her mind. He brought her to the edge, until the sweat on her brow was from more than the steam.

"I want you," she sighed, her arm twisted behind her back so she could hold him in hand and feel the strength and pulse of his desire.

He didn't deny her. Drawing his hand away from her thighs, his hips drifted backward, sloshing water and making her lose hold of his cock. A slick-fingered hand pressed to her back, bending her farther over the lip of the hot tub, and then she felt him pressing between her legs, parting the seam of her sex. They groaned as he pushed forward gently, moving in small, shallow thrusts. Chloe whimpered and held to the tile, relief washing over her as his hips met her ass and his fingers ran down her sides to curl around her waist. 

She watched evening settle over L.A. as he moved within her, sometimes slow and sometimes hard, the tips of her toes barely holding to the floor of the tub. Hot water splashed over the edge of the tile, burning her unacclimated fingers. It snaked forward on the balcony floor and dripped over the side.

Fingers found her clit, an aching peak at a breast, and his rhythm turned punishing as he hooked one of her legs with his and lifted it, planting his knee against the wall of the hot tub. And, oh, _that_ was the angle, she thought, groaning and feeling deliciously full as he yanked her to him, her back meeting his chest, their skin damp with sweat. He snapped his hips and ground into her body, one hand tucked between her legs. Her mouth fell open in a silent cry, and she turned her head to look up at him.

She gazed into a red-eyed, scarlet-skinned face that was corded by scar tissue and shaded by a black, wide-brimmed cowboy hat. Crimson lips quirked into a mischievous grin.

" _Lucifer_ ," Chloe cried, body seizing with a sudden flurry of contractions. 

Her eyes snapped open, his name on her tongue. She panted in the darkness of her bedroom, her hips grinding into the hand between her legs, where her panties clung wetly to swollen lips. Her orgasm faded in shuddering increments, until at last she relaxed her hold on herself and the sheets.

She stared at the ceiling, much as she had before she fell asleep, and tried to analyze the contents of her dream through a haze of exhaustion and satisfaction. The truth was she dreamed of him more than she would ever admit, but the burned flesh and... _western_ touches were new.

Fuck, fuck, fuck.

Rolling over, she grabbed her phone, unlocked it, and smashed her thumb over Lucifer's stupid, smug face. He answered on the first ring. 

"Detective? Are you home safe?"

A shiver snaked through her body to hear him. "Did you do that?"

There was a pause. "Do what?"

"Can you, like, communicate telepathically?"

"We've been over this." A hint of amusement colored his tone. "I'm not a Jedi."

"So that wasn't you."

It was hard to know if she should feel relieved or not.

"I've no idea what you're on about, so no. Have you been drinking by any chance? You sound a bit puffed."

"I'm home."

"Boxed wine, was it?"

She rolled her eyes. "I haven't had anything to drink since I left your place." Though maybe she should have started hours ago. She glanced at the red digits of her bedside clock and cringed. 1:00 a.m. "I just woke up." 

"Nightmares?" Lucifer asked softly. "Understandable, I suppose."

His interpretation made her heart ache unexpectedly and forced her to reply. "Not nightmares."

It was as if she could feel him perk up on the other end. "Ooh, did _nice_ dreams leave you breathless?" he teased, and there was no mistaking what he counted as nice. "Who did you dream about, Detective? You've my word I won't tell another soul."

"I, uh..." She froze, desperately willing him not to figure out the truth. It was bad enough he'd worked out that she had watched him with Paris and Pornstache. Say something, she willed herself. Name a name. Tell him to shut up. _Anything_. But no words passed her lips.

"Detective?"

"H-here," she croaked. "I'm here."

Awkward silence followed, though neither of them sought to end the call. Chloe imagined Lucifer, sitting at his piano, or in one of his chairs, or maybe he was lying in bed, too, staring at his own ceiling and wondering where to go from here. 

"Chloe," he breathed, and it was a clarion call, for he never used her name. "Were you dreaming of _me_?"

A high, guilty squeak tore from her throat. "Look, it's one in the morning. I should get some more rest."

"Right. Wouldn't want you to lose sleep." She sensed the pleased laughter in his mouth, even if he didn't set it free. "Sweet dreams, Detective."


	3. Dialed In

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is now going to be four chapters because I am me.

The bedside alarm blared at 6:30 a.m., like it always did. Chloe snarled into her pillow and threw a hand out to kill the sound, knocking the unused though fully charged blue vibrator from her nightstand in the process. She left it on the floor, too exhausted to deal with it. She had a massive headache, her mouth tasted like stale fast food, and the Devil was real and wore three-piece suits. For a long moment, she lay still, cringing internally as she revisited the multiple counts of embarrassment she had suffered in the last twenty-four hours. Which inevitably led to thoughts about God and the meaning of life. 

She went about her morning routine, taking solace in the checklist she ran through in her head. By the time she exited her bedroom, fully dressed, hair pulled back in a tight bun, she almost felt normal. She could do this. She could live in a world where Lucifer was the Devil. She could deal with what she had seen and dreamed. He would answer her questions about Heaven and Hell truthfully, and they could go back to business as usual. Nothing _really_ had to change.

But halfway down the stairs, she caught sight of Maze sitting at the kitchen bar and realized just how unrealistic her hopes were. Her weird friend, housemate, and occasional _babysitter_ was a demon.

What the fuck.

Everything suddenly made a lot more sense, even if she really wished it didn't. All the knives, the bad behavior, _the sex swing_.

"Like what you see, Decker?"

Chloe startled and murmured an apology as she made her way into the kitchen. 

"When'd you get in?" she asked, grasping for a safe conversation topic.

"Couple of hours ago. Had to drop off a dirtbag at the precinct."

"Oh, that's good."

It was. Humanity, she realized, was very lucky Lucifer and Maze wanted to fight bad guys.

Be normal, she commanded herself. Just be normal. Sure, she _wanted_ to talk about why there was a demon sitting in her kitchen and doing the LAPD's dirty work, but bringing up Maze's...species felt like bringing up someone's sexuality when you'd heard about it through the grapevine, rather than from the main source. Just a touch impolite, potentially. And so she made herself coffee, her hands shaking so badly that she nearly dropped her favorite panda mug. 

"What's got you in a knot?" Maze spoke around a mouthful of toast—toast that was burned black, just the way she liked it. That, too, made more sense now. In a horrible way.

"Nothing's wrong." Chloe nervously dusted a crumb into the sink. "Why would anything be wrong?"

"You"—crunch—"tell"—crunch—"me"—crunch—"Chloe."

"I'm fine." She snatched up her hot mug and held to it as though it were an anchor. "Everything's fine."

Maze stared at her for several long seconds before releasing a porcine snort. "I'm just fucking with you. Lucifer told me you finally figured out the truth."

Chloe's eyes bugged out over the lip of her mug as she tried to determine just _what_ Lucifer might have told Maze. She finally settled on the most neutral statement possible. "He told you?"

"Yeah, called me in the middle of the night with all his _feelings_ ," Maze griped, "like he didn't know I'd be busy." 

Oh, no, Chloe thought. That was shortly after she had stupidly called him. 

"How'd you figure it out, anyway?" Maze asked. "I mean, not that there weren't big flashing signs."

Chloe struggled to hide her surprise and pleasure at having her awkward secrets left intact. "Oh, I, uh, just really sat down and gave it some thought, you know?" Maze's eyes narrowed as she bared a fiendish grin. Chloe cleared her throat and changed the topic. " _So_! You're a demon!"

"Yep." She popped the last bite of burned toast into her mouth and spoke around it. "Forged in the bowels of Hell to torture the damned and serve Hell's king."

Dramatic. 

Setting her mug down on the counter, Chloe dared to ask, "So what's it like there, really?" Lucifer called it The Bad Place, sure, but maybe Hell was just misunderstood.

"Lots of screaming," Maze answered, dashing Chloe's hopes. "Hot. Ash everywhere. Dry—oh, except for where we kept the pedophiles. Lucifer liked to make them sweat. Especially the priests."

"Sure." Chloe tipped out the rest of her coffee in the sink, feeling more than enough awake. "Okay.

"You ever been near a paper mill?"

"Um, yeah? I think so."

Maze grinned. "You know that scent they put off, smells like rotten eggs?" She closed her eyes and breathed deeply, imagining the aroma. "That's what Hell smells like. Sometimes I hang out around paper mills to remember."

"Gross."

Opening her eyes, Maze turned her nose up at Chloe. "You just have to be there to appreciate it."

"Pretty sure it's not a place I want to go."

"As if Lucifer would ever let you be tortured," Maze huffed, almost in disappointment, as she pushed away from the bar while letting out a raucous belch. "I'm gonna get some shut-eye. Glad you're taking this so well, Decker. Linda needed, like, a week."

Chloe nearly dropped the plate Maze had left behind. " _Linda knows_?"

"Yeah. Found out not too long ago. Maybe...don't bring that up to Lucifer. It was a weird time." 

Leather biker boots clunked loudly on the floor as Maze discarded them at the bottom of the stairwell. Normally, Chloe would complain about the clutter, but today she didn't have the energy. 

"Maze?" she called with a frown. "Does Charlotte Richards know, too?"

Her demonic friend snorted again, this time with obvious derision. "You're not half bad at this detective shit."

"Gee, thanks. It's only my job."

"I don't know why it took you so long to figure Lucifer out. He's not hard to understand: Devil, daddy issues, dick. Not always in that order."

"So is that...a yes, when it comes to Charlotte?"

Maze leaned against the handrail to the stairs and smirked. "Charlotte Richards," she said, fluttering her eyelashes coquettishly, "is Lucifer's mom."

Lucifer's... Chloe felt like her brain was short-circuiting, as if she'd never heard the word _mom_ before in her life. "His _what_?"

"His _mom_. God's wife. Her soul's kinda trapped in a hot lady's body. You should probably steer clear of her. She's a bitch from Hell. Literally."

"God has a wife?" She'd made _God's wife_ wait for her to find her keys.

" _Duh_." Maze shot her an incredulous look. "Where do you think angels come from, Decker?"

"I don't know!" she despaired. "I hadn't thought that far yet."

"Well, the more you know, right? Anyway, I'm gonna go rub one out and sleep. Actually, you charged your vibrator recently? I think it was almost dead last time."

Chloe's mouth fell open before she roused to anger. " _That_ ," she yelled, pointing a finger, "is _out_ of line, Maze!"

"Whatever." Maze rolled her eyes. "I don't see what the big deal is. I washed it."

"Doesn't matter! No nosing around my room! And no using my-my things!"

After Maze disappeared around the stairwell's bend, Chloe stood in her kitchen and stared into space. 

_Nothing_ was going back to normal, was it?

* * *

Chloe called in sick. 

"Actually, I'd really like the whole week off, if it's possible," she admitted, sitting at her kitchen table and picking at a loose thread on a place mat. 

Lieutenant Monroe was surprised by the request for leave, though she didn't outright reject it. "Come _on_ , Decker," the other woman said, "you don't wanna take a break now. I've got the perfect case for you and Morningstar. Body's over at Malibu State. Forensics is already there. Prelim from Lopez is it's a poisoning."

"Like, alcohol poisoning?" Chloe asked, unable to quell her curiosity.

"That's what I thought. But, no, it's an _actual_ poisoning, so not your run-of-the-mill case. I figure if anyone can get a bunch of coeds to talk, it's that partner of yours."

Arching her eyebrows, Chloe hummed noncommittally. The case was tempting, like all unsolved mysteries were. But right now a dead coed didn't rank too highly on the list of things she wanted to understand, even if she did wish the soul a safe journey to...wherever it was headed. 

"Look, Lieutenant, I really am sorry for the short notice, but I need the time off. I just—"

"Okay, okay. Don't sweat it, Decker. You should have taken time off after Graham went after your kid, anyway."

The comment was a gentle reprimand. Chloe had refused the strongly recommended leave offer after all of that had gone down several months ago. All she had wanted to do was get back to work. If she kept moving, she had thought at the time, she wouldn't have to think about how close she'd come to losing Trixie because of her job. She wouldn't have to think about how the whole case _still_ got swept under the rug, or how indebted she was to a crazy nightclub owner who she was _certain_ had gotten shot, but had somehow walked out of that hangar like nothing had happened.

She supposed she understood that now, at least, sort of, even if the details were murky. The Devil probably couldn't die, right? But then why did he get injured when she shot him? Shaking her head, she threw that question onto the growing pile of confusion. 

Leave settled, she considered her options. It really had been a long time since she'd taken a vacation, even longer since she'd taken one alone—and she needed to be alone to process The Truth. The last time she had elected to take more than a day off was when Trixie had come down with the flu when she was four, which maybe didn't count. 

Staying home wouldn't work, not when her housemate was a demon. Staying in L.A. didn't feel right, either. She needed...space. Maybe not _Italy_ far, but away, somewhere. And so after awkwardly organizing for Trixie to stay with Dan for an extra week, she called her mother to do the unthinkable: ask for a favor.

Penelope Decker wasn't in the business of keeping track of debts—which was why her harried accountant released her savings in piecemeal—but that didn't mean she didn't know how to exact payment when it suited her. And there was always a price where Chloe was concerned, usually in the form of some small frustration or indignity.

She loved her mom. Dearly. She just didn't always _like_ her very much, between the flightiness and all the memories of cake makeup, weight watching, and auditions. Chloe tried to focus on her affection instead of her frustration as she opened her front door and let her mother breeze inside. Unfortunately, her focus was shot.

"You didn't have to come over, Mom." She really, really didn't. "I could have dropped by your place and picked up the keys myself."

"Oh, it's no trouble!" Her mother waved a hand while she not-so-subtly peered around the apartment. She was nosier than a bloodhound when it came to Chloe's private life and was only kept out of the loop by the demands of convention circuits and several past shouting matches about boundaries. "Why the sudden rush up to Sorrel Valley?"

Chloe busied herself with shoving her laptop into her backpack. "I just need a little time away." True, even if it greatly downplayed how much she was losing her mind. She hefted the bag, gave a tight smile, and held out her hand for the keys to the cabin.

"And Trixie's with Dan?"

"Mm-hmm." 

Her mother dropped the keys in her palm and looked at her sidelong. "Is Lucifer joining you?"

"What? _No_ , Mom."

Penelope held up her hands. "It was just a question. No need to get touchy." She shrugged. "Of course, there's nothing stopping you from inviting him now..."

"Okay," Chloe huffed. "Thanks for the input, but no."

"Have you two had an argument?"

God, she had to escape this conversation, pronto. "It's complicated." 

"What's complicated about it? You two are wonderful together and make such a lovely couple!"

She grabbed a bottle of water from the fridge. "He thinks he's the Devil."

The tiny asterisk to that being that he actually _was_ the Devil, and apparently her subconscious had no problem with it whatsoever, which probably meant she was on some fast track to Hell. And not the one in Michigan. 

All reasonable mothers would take that as explanation enough, but her mother had never been reasonable.

"Oh, Hollywood's filled with eccentric sorts, honey. That's part of its charm!"

Yes, Chloe thought, eccentric sorts who strolled into town, stripped down, and fell into threesomes she really wished she could get out of her head.

"Just. Drop it, Mom." Letting out a breath, she clutched the keys so tightly that the grooves bit into her hand. "Thanks," she said, "for letting me borrow the cabin."

"Pumpkin, you know you can stay anywhere that's mine, any time you want." She tilted her head as she studied Chloe. "I'm just worried about you is all. But whatever's upsetting you now, I know it won't last forever. Things will work out."

"I know you believe that." _How_ she believed it after her own husband's death was the real question.

Her mother leaned in and kissed her cheek gently. "It's okay," she whispered, and wiped lipstick from Chloe's face. "I have enough faith for the both of us."

Chloe hoped that was true.

* * *

It was a six-hour drive to the cabin in Sorrel Valley. As Chloe journeyed north on long stretches of sun-bleached highway, she wondered how the world could look the same when her understanding of it had been so fundamentally altered. 

By late afternoon, she turned onto the private, pothole-ridden road that led to the cabin. Part of a sparsely populated, unincorporated town, the roads around the valley were poorly maintained, but the cabin was a nice, cozily appointed getaway. City dwellers liked to rent it to escape crowds and the persistent haze of smog. She was lucky it had been available.

Swallowed on three sides by forest, the cabin stood on a hill that overlooked the valley and Milton Lake in the distance. It was a peaceful place, removed, even, from nearby civilization. At night, crickets would serenade her, and in the morning, the sun would kiss her awake in the cabin's lone bedroom. Chloe wilted in relief as she drove up the steep driveway and parked. This was right, coming here.

Inside, she stuffed groceries she'd bought along the way into the small fridge and ensured all the utilities were in working order. When she was done, she stood barefoot in the sunny yellow kitchen, arms hugging her middle.

"It's all true," she whispered, and hesitantly looked up toward the ceiling.

Somehow, the world kept turning.

* * *

She pored over Wikipedia pages, listened to audiobooks, and read everything she could find on the Devil. The world did not paint Lucifer in a favorable light. He was blamed for everything from bad weather to cancer and geopolitical crises. But it wasn't all bad. He had his fair share of fans—disproportionately atheistic or part of the gothic metal scene—though Chloe didn't think he went out of his way to spend time with them. 

Mostly, she took comfort in how religion didn't seem to know him at all. 

_Jesus said to them, "You belong to your father, the devil, and you want to carry out your father’s desires. He was a murderer from the beginning, not holding to the truth, for there is no truth in him. When he lies, he speaks his native language, for he is a liar and the father of lies."_

Chloe narrowed her eyes at the scripture. Lucifer massaged the truth sometimes, sure, but he was also so prone to blurting it out that she often had to course correct interrogations. If religion got this wrong, how much else was wrong? 

The more she learned, the more she wanted to know, and the more, too, she began to doubt most sources were any more than the leftover, broken remnants of a game of Telephone. The more it felt as though the only person in the world who knew Lucifer's story was Lucifer himself. Nor did she believe he lied to her now, as she texted him question after question, which he answered with an inordinate amount of patience.

_**Chloe:** What was up with Job??_

_**Lucifer:** HUGE misunderstanding._

Which he explained, in detail, over the course of twenty texts.

When her eyes weren't glued to her laptop screen or phone, Chloe hiked along the edge of Milton Lake, scuffing her block-heeled boots on rocks while contemplating Heaven, Hell, and everything in between. Didn't gurus do this, drift off into the wilderness and stumble upon enlightenment? Except Chloe was actually near a small town. She'd also put the cart before the horse, finding God before she'd even gone looking for Him—or, well, she'd found his problem child. 

Surely no one was _meant_ to discover a secret to the universe while trying to get off.

Not that Lucifer kept his identity a secret. You just had to be crazy to believe him.

She considered returning home early to ask him more questions in person, but the thought of talking to Lucifer outside of text was hard now. A little daunting and a _lot_ embarrassing, especially as she continued to dream of him each night. Not as the liar or cheat others made him out to be, but as a friend and a lover, as someone who was good and worth it. In her dreams, she didn't worry about what was possible or sane or embarrassing. But then morning would come, and she would put aside illusions as she continued her dogged and likely fruitless effort to piece together the puzzle that was the Devil himself. She wasn't even certain _why_ she did it, other than it felt like the thing to do. If nothing else, it kept her from spiraling. 

But on her third night in the cabin, she decided she'd had enough of going down supernatural rabbit holes. After her nightly call to Trixie, she made her favorite pasta and popped the cork on an expensive riesling, which she drank straight from the bottle because who was going to judge her for it? _God_ , she supposed, but couldn't quite care. On the television, Real Housewives were fighting about something inconsequential again, and she was thankful for the distraction.

The sun sank below the horizon, and Chloe sat alone in the dark, the only light in the room coming from the soft glow of the TV. She was finished eating and halfway through the wine, leaving her with a pleasant buzz that was sure to deepen as she continued to drink. Dragging the back of her hand across her mouth after another swig, she settled the bottle between her legs and sighed deeply. 

Her eyes landed on her closed laptop. Since leaving L.A., there was one devilish source she hadn't dared give a peek. Not that she expected to find answers there, but...if she were honest with herself, she was curious. Puffing air past her lips, she muted the television, set aside the wine bottle, and picked up her laptop. 

Even drunk, she knew she shouldn't do this. But just as Eve once ate of the forbidden fruit, so, too, did Chloe open the privacy window in her browser.

The profile for BigRooster666 was verified and had an unexpected sheen of professionalism. A photograph of entangled limbs of every race served as the profile's banner, while the avatar featured a closeup of a familiar, mischievous grin. In the bottom right corner, pink lips above a feminine jawline pressed a kiss to the edge of Lucifer's neatly stubbled chin. Chloe stared at the stranger's mouth for a long moment, a tight knot in her stomach. It was one thing to watch Cowboy with Paris and not realize who he was. It was another to know from the start that this was Lucifer. To know he had so very many sides to his life that she couldn't begin to understand or follow him into.

BigRooster was single, interested in guys and girls, and listed one simple turn on: "Fulfilling desires." 

Chloe rolled her eyes. 

After a moment's hesitation, she scrolled down. Pornographic video thumbnails came into view: gaping mouths, breasts and erections of various sizes, toys and leather and ropes and cuffs, the latter of which she hoped did not belong to the LAPD. There were cheeky, pun-filled titles to go with the many entwined bodies, one familiar, all the rest nameless and unknown. She scrolled through the dozens of women and more men than she expected, making small, disbelieving sounds in the back of her throat. Who _were_ all these people?

Still, she didn't navigate away. Instead, she clicked on one of the thumbnails at random.

The video faded in. Lucifer lay shirtless on a dark hardwood floor, his arms tied above his head with red ribbons. The camera hovered several feet above his grinning face and sculpted chest and didn't even show anything below his waist. A long, slender, dark-skinned leg appeared in the frame, and a black stiletto heel pressed into the hollow near where his ribs met. It was not a gentle step. His flesh dipped, but his grin widened.

"Oh, give it a stomp," he said, and Chloe gasped a disturbed laugh. 

The woman's heel jabbed into him, pressing harder. Far from calling off the assault, Lucifer continued beaming. "That's it! Really drive it home!"

Blinking, Chloe clicked away.

Another woman, light-skinned and large with heavy breasts, sank to her knees before an erection Chloe felt guilty about studying in high definition, but studied nonetheless. She skimmed through the video, scowling at the woman's mouth even as she listened to Lucifer's sounds behind the camera, her own hand drifting between her legs in reply before she quite realized what she was doing.

In another video, Lucifer's cock drove in and out of a blond-haired man's body. The man lay on his back, his hips upturned by pillows, his own cock bobbing with the force of Lucifer's thrusts until a hand with a familiar onyx ring curled around him. Words spilled from the man's lips—definitely European, maybe Dutch—and Chloe was surprised when Lucifer replied in the same language, his mouth full of pleased laughter. It wasn't as uncomfortable, watching him with a man, she decided, and stayed on the video, her hips grinding gently toward her hand. 

When the two men finally came, Lucifer on a low groan, the stranger across his own belly and chest, Chloe let out a small whimper. Lucifer slipped from the man's body and kissed and licked his way up his lover's torso, moving like a serpent. The video ended on their deep kiss, and the sight of it brought Chloe's discomfort roaring back. She drew her hand away from herself, frustrated. 

She clicked away again, this time moving faster through the content. There was an orgy in a basement made loud by a chorus of moans. Elsewhere, Lucifer twirled a flogger on a stage, working a crowd of a different sort. In other videos, she even recognized some of the places. The penthouse balcony with three women. A man in a storage room in Lux. _The precinct bathroom_ with Officer Frederick. Gasping, Chloe clicked away; there were some things you shouldn't know about a coworker twice your age. 

More often than not, Lucifer's head was between some woman's thighs, at least to start, and Chloe glared, knowing she had no right to feel unhappy, but feeling unhappy nonetheless. She had the petty urge to flag the videos for removal, but instead drank wine like it was water and kept clicking.

An Asian woman smaller than Chloe wore a strap-on and rode the LAPD's civilian consultant like she was trying to break a record. Her hips slapped against his ass, where he was on all fours on an IKEA bed, his knees spread comically to accommodate her considerably shorter height.

Lucifer craned his neck to look at the woman over his shoulder. "You can go at me harder than that, I assure you."

" _No talking_!" the woman snapped, and spanked his right ass cheek hard enough that the sound echoed in the room.

His head fell back as he laughed, unrepentant.

It _was_ funny, seeing this might of a man—the _Devil_ —on his hands and knees for a tiny woman. It was funny and maybe a little hot. For a while. Until they, too, kissed, and Chloe slapped her laptop shut. 

She breathed like a disgruntled bull, betrayed by her body, which ached with need, while her heart twisted miserably. There was an unfathomable divide between Lucifer and herself that went beyond the supernatural. What had she been thinking when she kissed him on that beach, after all his lovers with their "best nights" had told her exactly who he was—exactly who she _wasn't_?

And now that she knew the truth, who did she think she was? Who did she think _he_ was? Maybe he had feelings for her, but so what? What could she possibly expect from an ancient immortal known almost exclusively for being the universe's ultimate bad boy? And yet she dreamed of him. Every night.

Shoving her laptop aside, she leaned over and grabbed her phone. 

" _Bad_ idea," she murmured to herself, the remaining vestiges of sober thought trying to save her. And failing.

Lucifer answered on the second ring. 

" _Hello_ , Detective. Finally ready to take our Q&A to voice? What's the question about this time? Isaiah's stint as a nudist? Jesus' beef with the fig tree?" 

He sounded giddy, and damned if it didn't make her stomach somersault to know he was that way for _her_. But then he had fun with everyone, didn't he? She saw that now. He wasn't so different with her, after all. He was a charmer, a tease. A snake. Who'd just happened to say the right things. It didn't matter that she kissed him on the beach or that she knew the truth. It was what it was.

Chloe tipped back her wine bottle. It was almost empty. When had that happened?

"You think you're just _so_ cool, being with sooo many people," she slurred, and planted the bottle atop a spread thigh.

"Me?" he asked, bewildered. "I'm alone."

"Yes, _you_. Biiig. Rooster. Six. Six. Six." She rolled her eyes. "You're with a _looot_ of people."

" _Oh_. I didn't think you'd actually— Well. Good for you, Detective." His swallow was audible and only made her think of all the other things she'd watched him swallow. "Have you...been drinking, by any chance?"

"Answer the question."

"You...didn't ask me a question."

Chloe drank more riesling. "Charlotte Richards—your _mom_ —"

"Oh, dear."

" _Yeah._ I know _that_ , too. And she's wrong. I'm _not_ different."

"What do you—"

"'Cause it's all the same with you. You just waltz right in"—she waved the wine bottle—"with your handsome face and your fancy cars and your British _I'm Lucifuh Moorningstah_ accent, and then you throw people away. And, I guess, why wouldn't you? We're just human, right? We're probably just a big joke to you."

"Now wait one minute. You've _always_ known about my...all right, let's call them extracurricular activities, shall we?" He ignored her scoff. "None of that's a joke to me, Detective. That's—well, apparently none of it was what _I_ thought it was, either, but that aside, no one leaves dissatisfied, and no one is 'thrown' away. You know that. You _did_ just interview ninety-two of my—"

"I know who I interviewed!" She didn't need him telling her.

"Right." 

"I mean, Officer Frederick, Lucifer?" Chloe ground her teeth. " _Really_?"

"Ah. That. Well. A deal is a deal." She grimaced, and he huffed a soft laugh. "That was several months back, actually. How deep is this dive?"

"I've seen more than enough, _trust me_." 

"Are you certain? There's quite a lot of me to see."

"Ha. Ha."

"What's this about, really?" There was a pause, and then he chuckled. "Are you...jealous again, Detective?" His pleased tone grated.

"No," she lied. 

"Well, good. You've no need to be. It's— _We're_ not like my typical liaisons." Lucifer inhaled deeply before letting the air rush out over the call. "But, you know, in case you've forgotten, the offer to cross professional boundaries has always been on the table. I believe we were perhaps quite close to crossing—"

"That was before I watched you sleep with all of Los Angeles, Lucifer."

"Oh, I've barely scratched the surface." 

Snorting in begrudging amusement, Chloe let her head fall to the sofa's back with a soft thud. "This is stupid," she groaned, and squeezed her eyes shut. "Why did I even call you?"

"You do rather like seeking me out when you've had one too many."

"Shut up."

And he did, for a while. They sat in silence, and her body felt heavy, languid. 

He was the first to speak again. Of course. "This truly bothers you more than my devil face, doesn't it?" he marveled.

"I don't know." 

She really didn't. How could she even begin to quantify things when it came to Lucifer Morningstar?

"Say the word, and I'll delete everything," he vowed. "Anything you desire me to. The whole bloody account. Snapchat and Grindr can go with it."

"You don't have to delete anything, Lucifer." Chloe sighed, sadness gripping her heart. "We're not...a thing, and I'm not trying to change you."

"Well, bit late for that, isn't it?"

Despite herself, a fragile smile pulled at her mouth. She drank the last of her wine and set aside the empty bottle. Tucking her legs beside herself, she dragged a blanket to her chest and cuddled it close with one hand. "I don't know where to go from here," she confessed on a whisper.

"Yes, not every week you find out your work partner is actually the Devil."

"Or an even bigger slut than you realized."

Far from being offended, loud, rich laughter came through from the other end of the call. "Oh, come now, Detective," Lucifer said, sobering. "In all your indecent inquiries, surely you considered how my experience could be...beneficial. Maybe you've even _dreamed_ about it?"

She hated that he'd picked up on that.

"Beneficial," she repeated doubtfully.

"Mm. Forget the other people for a moment." Easier said than done, she thought. "There has to be _something_ in my vast repertoire that calls to you. Some little thing I did or had done to me. Something you've thought about but have never gotten from anyone else." 

Chloe bit her lip, his words settling somewhere low in her stomach. In the dark privacy of the cabin, she let herself think of Lucifer, not as her outlandish work partner, not even as the crimson monster or the Deceiver the Bible imagined him to be, but as one given to desire. She saw him laughing, saw his mouth fallen open in pleasure, his eyes dark and curious. His hips moving, the muscles of his arms and back and legs straining. She saw the slant of Cowboy's grin. The gentle awe in his face as she arched up on tiptoe to kiss him.

"Maybe I should be more blunt. Did you come while you watched me, Detective?"

An awkward laugh wheezed out of her as her thoughts splintered into pure, white static. "No! No, I was just..."

Just what? She put a hand to her forehead as she sank further into the cushions. God, it was hard to think clearly.

"I could help you come now if you wanted."

Chloe dropped her phone. It made a loud, blocky thump as it hit the floor. Muttering a curse, she snatched it up and slapped it back to the side of her face.

"Everything all right, Detective?" He was on the verge of laughing.

"Fine! Just"—she threw the blanket away from herself—"getting comfortable."

"Lovely. Is that a yes to a bit of masturbatory aiding and abetting, then?"

"I—"

Sluggishly, she thought back to promises she'd made to herself in her kitchen. That she was done. That the kiss was a mistake. That she knew better. And that was even _before_ she knew The Truth.

"Let me help you," he pled, voice rough with lust. "Please."

She shivered. "Okay," she breathed.

"Excellent. So, tell me, if nothing stood out, what did you like most? What _do_ you like most?"

Chloe felt her cheek muscles tighten with a blush. "I guess..."

"Yes..."

"The way you go down on women." Even as the words left her mouth, she knew she would never say them to Lucifer if she hadn't been drinking.

"A favorite pastime of mine." Not a lie, judging by his videos. "I would eat you out anywhere you'd let me, Detective."

She let out a small, uneven breath. It would be smart to stop here, before anything really started. She should put a stop to it. 

But she didn't. 

Instead, she listened to his warm voice in the low light of the room, following his suggestion as she touched her throat and dipped beneath the hem of her shirt, to massage her breasts and thumb and pinch her nipples. He told her to run fingertips down the length of her stomach, over and over, until she felt like she would snap with desire. She rolled her hips, again and again, and could feel the wet cling of her underwear beneath her soft shorts.

"Put two fingers in your mouth."

As if she were back in one of her dreams, she followed the direction through a haze of lust. She imagined they were his fingers in her mouth, even as her flesh tasted of salt and a distant memory of the red pepper she had put in her primavera. Adding a finger, she sucked and imagined her lips wrapped around more than his fingers.

"Touch yourself, Chloe." Hearing her name, a small whine emitted from the back of her throat, and she heard Lucifer's stuttering breath in response. "Take your time, like I would. Start from the outside and work closer." He groaned. "Darling, the thought of tasting you... I would do it for _hours_."

"Are you touching yourself, too?" she gasped. 

" _Yes_ ," he admitted, throat raw.

This was different from when she got herself off, which was usually done with the brutal efficiency of one who'd been masturbating for a while. And it was different, too, consciously giving in to the fantasy that was her best friend, the Devil. Letting herself imagine him between her legs, his eyes on her center, his fingers and tongue exploring. Imagining their reality was no less enticing—his fingers wrapped around his cock, hers gliding through slickness.

"I want you," she breathed, meaning it. 

Lucifer moaned loudly, and she greedily took the sound within herself, one finger frantically circling her clit. "You have me," he promised.

And it was the right thing to say. It was a revelation. She wanted him and could have him, if she would dare. All of him. Whatever that might mean.

Speech fell away, leaving them with the soft sounds of their shared pleasure across the distance. If she quieted her breathing, she could hear the movement of his hand on the other end. They panted and groaned together, and it was so easy to imagine opening for his body. The rightness of it. 

Chloe reached her peak first, and keened, her hips bucking against one hand, the fingers of her other clutching the edges of her phone with a vise-grip. Her back was still arched, her muscles still fluttering, when Lucifer fell over the edge. He wasn't a quiet lover; he let his desire be known, and Chloe drew it to herself, fingers still sliding across her sex.

They were quiet as their drumming hearts slowed. Sliding her body sideways on the sofa, Chloe rested her head on her phone, a relaxed, drunken sleepiness heavy upon her. She dragged her hand from her panties and felt the air cool her wet fingers.

"I wish you here," she sighed into the phone.

For a long time, there was no reply. Long enough, that she had begun to drift into sleep.

"I could join you," Lucifer offered. "I'd...like that. Very much."

"Okay." She smiled sleepily.

"Okay?"

She hummed an affirmative and gave into the night.


	4. A Devilish Intrusion

Chloe had never forgotten her first hangover, suffered the morning after filming wrapped for _Hot Tub High School_. At the time, she'd been eighteen—not that that had slowed the drinks the night before—and she had climbed out of bed with nothing more than a mild headache and dry mouth. A quick shower and a glass of water later, and she was good as new.

Hangovers were not so simple in your thirties, she reflected, squeezing her eyes shut against morning light. The dry mouth was there, but so, too, was her pulse, drumming at her temples, and it was as though she could sense every sinew clinging to her bones. She didn't remember climbing into bed at all and tried to piece together the night from memory. There'd been primavera and wine and _Housewives_ , and more wine, and then, _ugh_ , BigRooster666. Her eyes snapped open.

The details were very hazy, but she remembered their phone call, the awkward confessions and heavy breathing, Lucifer's rich voice dripping sin. Now, nervous laughter bubbled past her lips. 

Her head pounded as she rose stiffly from the bed. What had she been thinking? But she'd done it, hadn't she? She'd had phone sex with the Devil. There was no going back, and maybe, in a way, there was freedom in that. Maybe that was why she felt giddy again, as she had when she'd left Lucifer on the beach after their kiss. Like she was a helium balloon clipped free from its anchor. 

As she floated toward the living room, she was alarmed to hear footsteps clomping up the cabin's porch. She froze in the bedroom doorway, which had a direct line of sight to the front entrance. No one visited here unless they had a reason to. It wasn't the sort of driveway people accidentally drove up, nor the door someone would casually knock on for directions.

A blocky shadow appeared behind the sheer curtains of the craftsman door. The doorknob twisted, caught on the lock, and then, after a brief pause, turned the rest of the way, though she'd heard no key or pick inserted on the other side. Unimpeded, the intruder pushed into the cabin.

Gasping, Chloe sidestepped and spun on her heel; she pressed her back against the bedroom wall. The front door shut quietly a moment later, and shoes fell across the hardwood. They were heavy footsteps—a man's, she was sure. Chloe's eyes skirted over the bedroom, hunting for a weapon, and landed on the skinny, metal lamp on the nightstand.

While the intruder moved about the cabin, she tiptoed to the bedside table and unplugged the lamp as quietly as possible. Removing the shade and bulb, she hefted the fixture, holding it upside down. It wasn't a great weapon, but a metal lamp base to the head could probably do a lot of damage in a fight.

Chloe eased toward the living room on the balls of her feet, adrenaline pumping so hard that her hangover was all but forgotten. She could hear the man shuffling about the kitchen, opening drawers and cabinets. Dread curled in her stomach, and her palm grew damp around the steel neck of the lamp. 

She stopped at the edge of the living room, where the wall to her right dropped off into the small, yellow kitchen. She listened closely as something gently clattered to a counter, followed by...chopping? She frowned. A man had broken in and was helping himself to _food_?

Then came the soft whistling. It was a happy tune that she was certain she knew. She listened for several seconds before her brows knit together with her confusion. Was that..."Let's Get It On"? _Really_?

Slowly, she bent at the waist and peeked around the corner. A tall, familiar form, clad in black wool, stood in the kitchen, narrow hips swaying as he whistled before a cutting board.

" _Lucifer_?" she spluttered.

The Devil turned on a designer heel, his face lighting with a megawatt smile. "Ah, good, you're up!" He noted the lamp raised in her hand. "And...you're going to club me to death?"

Chloe's hand fell to her side, leaving the lamp and its cord to dangle. "What are you doing here?" 

She glanced at the door, curious, then at the bags of groceries on the counter. He was slicing fruits and neatly arranging them on a plate. 

"I...tried to call, but you weren't answering." 

"I was asleep. I'm not sure that excuses breaking and entering." Although, at this point, was she really surprised? 

He set down a paring knife, his expression wary. "You don't remember last night?"

Chloe had rarely blushed before meeting Lucifer, not even in the early days of her relationship with Dan, but there'd always been something about this man that threw her off balance and head first into embarrassment. Her face burned now, and the twinkle in Lucifer's eye made her glare at him. 

"So you _do_ remember," he concluded cheekily, and with obvious relief. 

She was very aware, suddenly, of how little her sleep shirt and shorts left to the imagination. That she was wearing the same clothes she had been when they'd spoken on the phone. "Yeah, sure. I remember..." She nodded and tucked hair behind her ear. "What we did." 

"Climaxed telephonically, you mean."

Rolling her eyes, she plunked the lamp on the counter and crossed her arms over her chest. "That still doesn't explain why you're here, Lucifer."

"Well, clearly you don't remember everything because _you_ ," he said, pointing a finger at her, "invited _me_." He turned the finger to his grinning face. His eyebrows jerked upward twice. "I think it might have been a booty call."

Her mouth slowly fell open. "I did _not_ invite you." Had she? 

"Oh, but you _did_." Leaning back on the counter, he crossed one ankle over the other and unearthed a strawberry from the plate behind him. "Not that you made it easy for me to find you. Maze didn't have your address, but your mum was quite happy to share the deets." 

"Since when do you talk to my mom?" she exclaimed, mortified.

"Uh, since the day I met her." He sunk his teeth into the fruit. "Do you know, I think she rather likes me," he said, punctuating his words with small jabs of his half-eaten strawberry. "Nice cabin, by the by."

"God, of course she gave you this address," she groaned. An absurd thought struck her as she spotted the early hour on the microwave clock. "Wait, did you drive all night?" 

"Some of us don't drive like we reside at a care home." 

Which was no answer at all. She narrowed her eyes and huffed. An awkward silence fell over them, and she didn't miss how his thumb nudged his onyx ring. It was a nervous tic he had that few noticed. At least he was uncomfortable, too.

"I can go if—" he began, at the same time she said, "I'm not sure this is a good idea." 

She was supposed to be here—alone—thinking. Wasn't she? It was a big deal, learning the truth. She should take some time to process it. Shouldn't she?

"Right." Lucifer's expression closed off as he turned back to the cutting board. "Well. At least let me make you a bit of brekkie before I bog off."

"You don't have—"

"I've got the ingredients and the time, Detective. It's no trouble."

A twelve-hour—or however long it would take him—round trip to make breakfast for her seemed unfair, especially considering a less sober version of herself had asked him to come— _visit_. Had asked him to visit.

Feeling guilty, Chloe stared at his back, how he held his shoulders in a perfectly straight, tense line. Her pulse was slowing in increments after the rush of adrenaline, leaving behind a dull headache. It was hard to recapture the giddiness she'd felt before she thought she was under attack. Now everything was off-kilter. She should say something, she thought, but instead filled a glass with tap water and went and sat at the kitchen table. Once she'd drunk her fill, she sighed and dropped her forehead into her hands.

"There's aspirin in the bag on the left."

She looked up. "What?"

Without turning, Lucifer pointed the knife in his hand toward the groceries. "Aspirin—for the hangover. Food should help, as well." He went back to slicing.

Something in Chloe softened. He was like this, and had been since the day they'd met. He had little sparks of sincerity and thoughtfulness that she wanted to cup her hands around, as if to protect a burgeoning flame from the wind. She considered the strangeness of what she knew now and marveled that he wasn't more hardened by time and circumstance. Maze's descriptions of Hell, not to mention religions' ideas about the concept, didn't make it sound like a nice or nurturing place for anyone.

It was with these thoughts that she realized the truth, no matter how colossal, might be a burden best shared with another. She was tired of holding him at arm's length because it was the smart thing to do. She always did the smart, right things, or tried to, and had little to show for it.

Rising from the kitchen table, she squared her shoulders and crossed the room to Lucifer. He was pouring oil into a frying pan and turned sideways at the sound of her approach, one brow arched in question. Smiling, she took the cruet from his hand and set it aside.

He glanced at it, perplexed. "You don't like truffle oil?"

Chloe shook her head and stepped into his personal space, close enough that their bodies nearly touched. Lucifer flattened against the cabinets in surprise, the heels of his hands falling to the countertop with a soft thud.

" _Detective_? I thought..." 

"Maybe I was wrong before," she said in a rush, before she could lose her gumption. "Maybe it's okay having you here." 

"It is?" 

"It could be." She shook her head at herself. "Even if I don't remember inviting you."

"So I should stay, then?" He searched her face. 

"Yeah. Stay." Nodding, she rested her hands on his chest. It was the first time she'd touched him since learning the truth. It felt taboo, crossing this line. And good.

An uneven breath gusted over his lips. His heart thundered beneath her fingers, making her grin until she considered how _old_ his heart must be. She got lost staring at her hand atop his breast.

"What made you change your mind?" he asked softly.

Chloe stirred from her stupor and considered the question, a pointer finger grazing the soft cotton of his white dress shirt. It was the little things, she thought, like lattes and aspirin and sly grins. And it was the big things, too, like funding a boy's college education and confronting Malcolm. It was how Lucifer seemed to show up when it mattered most. How that made her feel like an egg cracked open, but never tipped sideways. Just held, cradled. Safe. She didn't understand this world she'd stumbled upon, but she felt safe with the Devil. 

Even if he was a massive slut.

"It's hard to explain," she answered, leaning into his body and stretching on tiptoe. 

Lucifer licked his lips and craned his neck away from her. "You haven't been drinking _today_ , have you?"

Smiling fondly, she shook her head and closed the distance.

"You should know I laid the rooster to rest," he blurted across her mouth.

Chloe dropped back to heels, her lips relaxing from a slight pucker. " _Huh_?"

"I deleted my porn account," he said in a rush. "Account _s_ , rather. All of them."

" _Oh_. Okay." Her stomach flipped in pleasure. "You didn't have to do that." But, oh, how she liked that he had.

"Right, I know, but consider this a show of"—he scoffed—"well, good faith, as it were. You know, if you want my rooster only pecking about your hen house, in which case you can trust I won't run afoul of that with other hens—or cocks, for that matter."

"Please shut up," she gasped, belly jerking with barely contained laughter.

Reaching up, she grabbed his face and pulled him to her. He followed willingly, and their lips brushed in a way she felt in her chest and low in her belly. Her eyes shuttered closed as they kissed. It was gentle, sweet, and more tentative than the kisses she'd seen him share with his many lovers, and she wanted more. Resting the weight of her body against his, she brushed her tongue across his bottom lip. It was the switch she wanted to flip. Lucifer's hands flew away from the counter to clutch her back and head as he deepened the kiss, sliding his tongue along hers with a wanton groan that made her whimper into his mouth.

He tugged on the strands of hair caught between his fingers and tilted her head back. They stared at one another for a long moment, lips parted, before he bent and followed the slope of her exposed throat with tongue and teeth. She slid her hands under his suit jacket and nosed his hair, breathing in warm, heavy scents of soap and cologne she'd only caught hints of before, when he left a room or when one of them had leaned closer than was appropriate for colleagues. 

"Now that I'm here, what is it you desire?" His stubble rasped against her flesh. 

"You know that doesn't work on me, Lucifer." 

He grunted in frustration. 

But, oh, Go— His mojo was _definitely_ something they needed to discuss. Later. She inhaled sharply as he pushed aside the collar of her sleep shirt and suckled where her neck met her shoulder.

Lucifer pulled back and grinned, delighted. "Well, _there's_ something," he said, his hold on her tightening, fingers digging into the small of her back. "And I know there's more to discover," he coaxed. "Much more."

"What we're doing now is nice."

"Is this all you want?" he asked.

What _did_ she want? But then she felt the press of his arousal against her stomach and knew. She was not repulsed by him or his secrets, and she was more than ready to prove that to both of them. Arching her hips toward his thighs, she bumped her fingers along the buttons of his shirt, until she reached the waist and yanked it untucked. "You could go down on me?" she suggested, somewhat shyly and more than a little hopefully.

A pained, lustful expression flitted across Lucifer's features before he sighed. "Well, yes, that's a given. Really, who do you take me for?"

She laughed at his indignation. "You asked what I wanted." She leaned into his hand as he cupped her breast and squeezed. "I told you."

"Yes, but I was hoping for something a bit more scandalous than third base, wasn't I?"

"Maybe I'm not scandalous."

He looked at her doubtfully, but really he had no idea just how little it would take for her. How long it had been since she'd been with another. Over a year—two, if she included the nearly dead bedroom from her final year of marriage. She was practically vibrating being this close to someone again, and they weren't even naked yet.

With her help, Lucifer shrugged off his jacket and let it fall to the kitchen floor. Her fingers went to work on the buttons of his shirt. 

"If you were normal, you'd tell me all your dirty little secrets," he complained petulantly.

"Oh. If I was _normal_. _Thanks_."

Lucifer scoffed. "You know what I mean." 

"Let's just figure things out as we go, okay?" she said, her voice lilting high as he thumbed her nipples through the baby blue fabric of her shirt. "You can't mojo my desires out of me, and I've never had"—she stumbled over the thought—"sex with the Devil." 

His brows pulled together slightly, but then he grinned slightly, almost timidly, and she saw the ghost of Cowboy's smile in the expression. 

They fell quiet as they explored each other with increasingly urgent kisses and groping hands. Feeling bold, Chloe brushed across his obvious hardness, an anticipatory ache between her legs as he hissed and thrust against her palm. He fell upon her mouth hungrily, one hand holding her head to his, the other sliding down her stomach and past the elastic waist of her shorts. Chloe moaned as his fingers danced across the dusting of hair atop her pubic mound. 

Lucifer tore away from her with a gasp, eyes wide, lips swollen from her kisses. He looked back and forth between her face and where his wrist was disappearing in her shorts. 

"What's wrong?" Chloe asked, feeling awkward, her grip loosening on his clothed erection. 

"You don't have any knickers on." 

"Oh... Um." She shrugged. "Yeah, I don't...sleep in them." 

"Ever?"

"Not really?"

"So all those times I've popped over in the morning, and you've still been getting ready..."

He nodded with her, his mouth hanging open. Chloe glanced down at his trousers as she felt him harden even more. 

"Right," he breathed, still nodding. "That's enough snogging." 

He shoved down her shorts.

Chloe's surprised laughter was cut off by a kiss, and soon he was laughing as well, one hand inelegantly yanking at the shorts where they clung to her thighs. The fabric finally slipped far enough to drop the length of her legs and pool at her feet. Lucifer pulled back to look at her, his excitement infectious.

Before she could process what was happening, he bent and grabbed her by her thighs, hoisting her into the air. Squealing, she locked her ankles behind his back and clutched his shoulders as he turned them. Supporting her rear with one hand, he used the other to shove the cutting board and plate of fruit aside. The plate knocked a ceramic dish over, and sugar spilled out in a long, white line. Chloe could not possibly care about any of it.

Lucifer set her atop the counter. "Do you know how long I've wanted to do this?" 

"Since you met me?" she snickered. His history was intimidating, and _their_ history was complicated, but she could be secure in the knowledge he'd always wanted her.

"Oh, much longer than that." He shook his head and tugged her to the edge of the quartz counter before pulling her knees wide apart. "Since _I_ watched _you_ in your own naughty movie." Standing between her thighs, he grabbed hold of her sleep shirt and tugged it off her. His gaze fell to her breasts a moment before he leaned down to kiss them. 

Rolling her eyes as she leaned back, she tried not to feel self-conscious about how...unplanned all of this was. "I just took my top off for that," she reminded him, arching toward his tongue with a sigh. 

"Yes," Lucifer said, pulling back and giving her a quick kiss on the nose that made her smile, "but I have a very good imagination." 

With that, he dropped to his knees and dove forward. Chloe bit her lip as he spread her open with his thumbs and leaned his head against one of her legs. "Is this how you liked seeing me?" he asked, breath warm on her center as he looked up at her. "I could stay here a while, you know."

Chloe nodded mutely, unable to think of a witty reply. She struggled to control her ragged breathing as he studied her intently and slid his fingers along the creases of her thighs. He swept closer, testing pressure and massaging, but never quite where she yearned for him. Her head fell back against a cabinet. It had been so long since anyone had touched her like this that she'd almost forgotten the pleasure of it, certainly the details of it, the way time slipped and narrowed.

When his mouth descended, she cried out from the sudden sensation and curled forward. His tongue flattened and dragged upward, and for a while he lapped at her, echoing her every moan. One of his hands glided up and clutched her right breast, while she felt a finger from his other hand circle her opening in promise. His eyes held hers as he pursed his lips around her clit and sucked at the same time he drove his finger forward.

Chloe cursed, her heels scrabbling against cabinets.

Laughter vibrated between her legs, making her arch her hips and nearly lose her place on the counter. The hand at her breast departed and grabbed her thigh to haul her leg closer to his head, encouraging her to rest against him. Taking the hint, Chloe crossed her ankles at his back, and relaxed into sensation. His free hand wrapped around her hips, holding her near. 

Fingers moving in and out of her, Lucifer groaned against her sex, and it was these sounds, the sounds of his own lust against her wet heat, that finally tipped her over the edge. Crying out, one of her hands flew to his hair and held him in place as her muscles contracted almost painfully against his fingers. 

Resting his head against her thigh again, he licked her almost lazily, his fingers sliding away as her climax eased. He sucked them clean and gave her a smug smile that made her huff and tug on his hair playfully in response.

"Now, don't you regret not letting me do that sooner?"

Chloe opened her mouth to check his ego, but froze, noticing for the first time where her feet sat between his shoulder blades. The sight was not unlike jumping into a cold shower.

"Oh!" she yelped, pulling her heels away from him. "I'm sorry. I didn't mean to..."

She stared at the long, grisly scars marring his otherwise unblemished flesh. She'd seen his scars in several of his porn videos, but they stood out glaringly here, beneath the morning light that shone into the cabin's yellow kitchen. Evidence of a crude amputation. 

_Don't please_ , he had once begged her.

Looking at her strangely now, he sat back on his heels, taking away her view of his disfigurement. "Whatever's wrong?" Hair sticking up at odd angles, chin shining with her arousal, he looked thoroughly debauched and confused. In another circumstance, she might laugh.

"The..." She drew her legs closed in front of his face. " _Your_ scars. I didn't mean to put my feet on them." A little breathlessly, she asked, "They're from your wings? "

Because once upon a time, Lucifer Morningstar had _wings_. She'd laughed at the idea in the past. Laughed at _him_.

She wasn't laughing now. 

"Ah. That." He glanced over one shoulder before rolling his eyes. "Well, don't mind them. I certainly don't."

"Do they hurt?" Chloe whispered, thinking of her own scars and the way her shoulder sometimes ached. 

The question seemed to surprise Lucifer, but then he frowned. "It's complicated." Clearing his throat, he stood and clapped his hands onto the tops of her thighs playfully. "Shall we take this to the bedroom?"

She rested her fingers against his. "Don't do that."

"Do what?" he countered innocently, though he had the same guilty expression Trixie wore whenever she was caught doing something she shouldn't.

"Don't hide from me." Chloe smiled at him gently and lifted her hands to his face to soothe away the sting of the reprimand. "It's not like I haven't seen"—her eyes dipped below his belt—"well, a whole lot of you at this point." He was still erect now. 

"You're one to talk," Lucifer snorted, looking brazenly at her nakedness as he leaned into her touch. Reluctantly, he added, "I admit I thought you would run away after you saw me."

"Well, I did come up here," she said, casting a glance around the cabin. It felt smaller with him in it, as if it couldn't contain his personality.

"You could have gone farther."

"I thought about it."

"Why didn't you?"

Chloe shrugged a shoulder. "It's not like you killed anybody, Lucifer. You were in porn." She laughed. "Really, _really_ cheesy seventies porn."

"That you were well enjoying," he teased, and slid his hands up to her waist, where his fingers curled around her.

She rolled her eyes, but didn't deny it. 

"That's not all I am, though," he continued, and looked down at his half-clothed form. " _This_ isn't all I am. You do understand that now, don't you, Chloe?"

"You're the Devil," she agreed firmly, a heady combination of fear and excitement rushing through her blood as she remembered his burned face. "But you're an angel, too, aren't you?"

His jaw set, and his fingers flexed against her. "Not anymore."

"Because of your wings?"

"For many reasons. The wings were merely..." She watched his throat work as he swallowed. "Let's just say that part of my life went up in flames. They're gone for good now."

"Okay," she said, petting his neck.

Lucifer looked at her skeptically, searching for judgment she hoped he wouldn't find in her expression. After all, even with her recent crash course on religion, what did she know about his world or the Bible or any of it? 

Slowly, she leaned forward and kissed him. He melted against her, and she tasted the salt of her body on his lips. Their frenzy was gone, but fervor remained. He tangled his fingers into her hair, and she dropped her hands to his belt buckle. Together, they finished undressing him, dropping his clothes in a pile with hers on the kitchen floor. Briefly, he dug through the heap, cock bobbing comically as he unearthed from his suit jacket a small, metallic compact which held three condoms. He waggled his brows at her as he removed one from the case.

 _Of course_ Lucifer was always prepared to have sex.

Standing before him, Chloe felt small and out of her depth as she gently wrapped her fingers around his hard length. His hips jerked, and he puffed out a laugh at himself. And for a moment, he was just any other man.

"Sorry," he murmured. "This may be a bit of a dream of mine."

"Mine, too," she whispered back, flattered.

He grinned. "Oh, that's right." Chloe sighed, knowing she'd never live down this past week. "What _did_ you dream, anyway?"

Doubting either of them was ready to address _that_ , she ran her thumb over the head of his erection to wipe the smirk off his face.

They didn't make it to the bedroom. His tongue in her mouth, Lucifer pulled her with him as he collapsed back onto the brown, three-seater couch. She shimmied forward on his thighs until the weight and heat of him pressed against the lips of her sex. She was still wet from before and sighed in relief to be so close, her hips moving as his hands glided over her with a reverence that made her heart ache. He pressed kisses to unexpected places, like the insides of her wrists and the hollow of her throat. Kisses she hadn't seen him give anyone else. 

Maybe one day, Chloe thought, they'd be able to say to each other what had been obvious for a while. 

When she raised up on her knees and finally sank onto his length, he watched her face, his lips parted. She groaned when he was fully seated within her, stretching her in pleasurable, forgotten ways. They fit well together, if slightly differently from how she'd imagined they might. The truth was better than fiction.

Thumbs caressing the peaks of her breasts, he looked at her in wonder. "This is real, isn't it?" 

Chloe nodded and dropped her forehead to his. She kissed his nose, like he had kissed hers. "Yeah, but I feel like I should be the one asking you that."

What was she even doing? And yet, she wouldn't change anything.

"Oh, darling, I'm very real," he said, rocking into her until she gasped.

They moved together like they'd kissed on the beach, with a maddening gentleness. Chloe ground against him and the fingers he'd slipped between their bodies. And it was good, but she'd seen him with others and knew what he was capable of, couldn't help the flare of jealousy.

"Lucifer..."

"Mm?" 

"I— Can we—" 

He perked up, sensing her desire. "Yes?"

"I need more."

Mischief sparked in him. "I brought a cowboy hat. Would that help?" 

She groaned. "No you didn't." She tilted her head. " _Did_ you?"

"I can fetch it from the Corvette right now." He started to lift her off him by her hips, but she held to him, giggling. "You can ride me until you break me. Or vice versa. Cowhand's choice."

For the life of her, she could no longer tell if he was joking or telling the truth, but then it didn't matter as he flipped her onto her back, hooked one of her legs on an arm, and, oh, _this_ was the Devil. 

"Or we can do this. Is that what you need?"

Chloe nodded wordlessly and held on to the cushions as he drove into her. She cried out when he thumbed her clit.

"Oh, Go—"

"Do _not_."

" _Lucifer_ ," she amended, and he beamed, obnoxiously triumphant.

When they came, it wasn't exactly together, but it was close and easy, and not like they were new lovers at all—as if, of course they had arrived here, in this cabin, naked together. And what remained of an old, tangled knot between them unraveled as Lucifer rested his weight against her. They breathed raggedly onto each other's necks. 

"You're... _really_ heavy," Chloe complained a few minutes later, and he rolled to the side, taking her with him. She rested her head on his bicep and peered up at him. He looked more relaxed than she'd ever seen him before.

"Well, how was it?" he asked, amused. "Thumbs up or thumbs down if you _just happened_ to run across us on my profile?"

She breathed a laugh and drew shapes on his chest with a finger. "I feel good." 

"I've got ciggies, if you want one."

Chloe stretched her toes. "No smoking in the cabin, but"—she looked at him slyly—"I think I'd be up for more soon, anyway."

"Is that right?" A corner of his mouth lifted. Before she could reply, her stomach rumbled loudly against his. Chuckling, Lucifer squeezed her to him and planted a kiss to her forehead. "Maybe after breakfast. I'm a bit peckish myself, anyway." With some awkwardness resulting from long limbs on furniture that was too short, Lucifer rose and removed the condom hanging off him. "Devil cannot live off honeypot alone, you know." He grinned lasciviously. "Though I'd be up for trying."

Snorting, she nudged his thigh with her foot. "I think I do _desire_ breakfast. For now."

"Yes, Detective," he sighed with false weariness. "One hangover breakfast coming up."

Lying sideways on the couch, Chloe watched him move about the kitchen, naked and with a bounce in his step. She felt just as comfortably happy, even as she wondered what they were doing—if they were dating, what work would look like now, and a dozen other things that had no answers but would need them soon. He picked up their clothes from the floor and moved them to a chair, pausing long enough to remove his cell phone from his suit jacket. He clicked his tongue at it.

Chloe leaned up on an elbow. "Having to turn away another admirer?" she teased, because the sting of the night with Jana was almost gone.

"What?" He glanced at her. "No. No more admirers. Well, I hope not."

His words made her feel warm. "What is it then?" 

"Mum... She's been calling and texting."

"Oh." Right. _The Goddess_. 

His thumbs flew over the face of his touchscreen. She ogled the long lines of his body, from his chest, to the hip he banked against the countertop, his relaxed manhood, and muscled legs. His "surprise nudity" had always embarrassed her, but being like this with him now felt like the most natural thing in the world. Really, what was there to hide after their history, his devil face, and, well, terabytes of pornography?

"Is everything okay?"

"Well. It's Mum, so not bloody likely. Seems she wants to meet at some dive bar tonight." He shook his head, bewildered. "She has something to tell me." 

"Oh, okay." Sitting up, Chloe hugged her knees and struggled to hide her disappointment. "When do you think you'll leave?"

Lucifer barked a laugh and chucked his phone aside on the counter. "You're starkers and have the rest of the week off, I'm not going anywhere."

Chloe's cheeks hurt as she grinned.

**Author's Note:**

> [Fic Recs](https://archiveofourown.org/users/matchstick_dolly/bookmarks) • [My Fics, Categorized](https://matchstickdolly.tumblr.com/lucifer-fanfics-by-matchstickdolly) • [My Fanvids on YouTube](https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCpFt_dvJXpicQkuPOCDEvhg/videos) • [Tumblr](https://matchstickdolly.tumblr.com/)


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